Thomas given gastro tablets before death
THOMAS Snell was given gastro tablets by a GP hours before the 13-year-old was driven to a Brisbane children’s hospital and placed on life support suffering from a fatal bout of septic shock.
Twenty days later, their son had deteriorated to a point that his parents, together with his treating team, made the traumatic decision to turn off his life support.
His rapid transformation from a healthy teen to being on life support still haunts the family.
Had he survived, Thomas would have required amputations of his hands and feet.
His family — mum Amanda Clarke, dad Phillip Snell and younger brother Patrick, 12 — had travelled to Queensland to cheer him on while representing the Territory at an state championship under-14 rugby union tournament,
One day, Thomas was texting his Mum asking for some cough lozenges and playing rugby for his side. By the next afternoon, doctors were connecting him to life support machines, urging his parents to tell their son they loved him.
“There follows 20 days of absolute heartache,” Amanda said.
“We have guilt that we didn’t get him to hospital soon enough,” his mum says. “Why didn’t we know?”
But sepsis is a mystery killer, even to doctors. It remains unclear why some previously healthy children and adults develop sepsis from common infections, and others don’t.
The big hope is that through research, a blood test may be developed to pinpoint the patients susceptible to sepsis so they can be treated with antibiotics as soon as possible and admitted to hospital.
A reliable test would also help doctors in rural and regional hospitals to decide whether children should be transferred to bigger centres with paediatric intensive care units. Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital Associate Professor Luregn Schlapbach who treated Thomas said the study would involve more than 500 patients at the Lady Cilento, Townsville and remote Queensland hospitals.
It will assess the value of a blood test measuring gene activation as a sepsis diagnosis tool. The test is based on international research identifying genes which are activated in patients with sepsis.
If it proves successful, it will not only allow paediatricians to diagnosis sepsis sooner, it should also reduce antibiotic prescriptions. “At the moment, GPs and emergency doctors have a very challenging task when, out of hundreds of children that they see every day with fever, they have to make a call as to which ones need antibiotics and which ones should be in hospital because of the risk of sepsis.”